Meatballs in Tomato Sauce (roughly based on Mario Carbone's Meatballs off of the old luckypeach site)

So, there was this mess with the old Luckypeach magazine. It shuttered for whatever drama reason, and the website with it. Some of their recipes were great. They had this recipe for meatballs taken from Mario Carbone. I think he runs a restaurant outside of New York and maybe worked with Batali at some point. His meatballs are based on his mom's meatballs. The goofy part of the Carbone's Meatballs recipe is that, for the most part, it's a standard meatball recipe. You soak bread in milk and mix it with meat, maybe some egg, garlic and Italian parsley usually, and there you go. Serve it with some kinda tomato sauce and cheese of some type.

These are only roughly based on Carbone's meatballs, but I still feel like I should give credit in some way. I skipped the veal. It's just super expensive where I shop. It's just not that good that it's worth the money or the emotional overhead of eating little cows. Make fun of me all you want. I guess I got a soft spot for those little cows. Oddly enough, I'm kinda ok with suckling pigs. Doesn't make sense I guess. Anyway, I skipped the veal, and I also got a little confused with the original recipe which called for a basil infusion. I'm guessing that's just leaving basil in olive oil for awhile, but I got lazy and just pureed some fresh basil into the sauce. It worked great. Super tremendous! Four stars!

I took some pics and video if you're into that sorta thing: Click here for the full and complete tutorial

Ingredients

• 3/4 cups milk
• 2 cups of stale crusty bread
• 28 oz crushed tomatoes
• 1/4 cup chopped italian parsley
• 2 tbsp chopped garlic
• A big chunk of good parmesan
• 2 eggs
• 1 lb italian sausage
• 1lb ground beef
• 1 tsp salt
• olive oil
• A few stalks of fresh basil

Directions

1. First you wanna get your bread soaking in milk. About 2 cups of good stale bread, diced up with the crust removed. Add the milk. Squish it up a bit with your hands.
2. Then start the sauce. This sauce is quite simple. Dump the canned tomatoes in a sauce pot and set it to simmer gently.
3. Chop up the garlic and parsley. Grate about a cup of parmesan.
4. Once the bread is done soaking, scrunch it up with your hands a bit to break it up and get it totally soggy, then add the meat (remove the sausage from it's causing), garlic, parsley, eggs, parmesan and salt. Mix it all up nicely. Lots of bare handed smooshing here.
5. Get a big pan going, nice and hot with some olive oil. Fry the balls. Scoop out your meatballs and place them in the hot oil. Smart to cook one off to check the seasoning before you cook the whole batch. Don't crowd your pan too much. Give the balls a nice caramelized crust, all around.
6. When the sauce has simmered down, about 30-45 minutes maybe, and starting to look kinda thick, put it in a blender. Add the basil. Puree until smooth. Careful, blending hot things creates pressure. You don't wanna have to clean tomato sauce off of your ceiling. Season with a little salt if needed.
7. Put some sauce in a dish. Arrange some meatballs in the sauce. Finish with a heap of parmesan and a drizzle of nice olive oil.

bon appetit